Just before this examination commenced, Grace clasped her hands, and cast a deprecating look on Henry, as much as to say, “Be moderate.” And then her eyes roved to and fro, and the whole woman was in arms, and on the watch.
Mr. Raby began on him. “As for you, your offense is not so criminal in the eye of the law; but it is bad enough; you have broken into a church by unlawful means; you have turned it into a smithy, defiled the graves of the dead, and turned the tomb of a good knight into an oven, to the scandal of men and the dishonor of god. Have you any excuse to offer?”
“Plenty. I was plying an honest trade, in a country where freedom is the law. The Hillsborough Unions combined against me, and restrained my freedom, and threatened my life, ay, and attempted my life too, before to-day: and so the injustice and cruelty of men drove me to a sanctuary, me and my livelihood. Blame the Trades, blame the public laws, blame the useless police: but you can't blame me; a man must live.”
“Why not set up your shop in the village? Why wantonly desecrate a church?”
“The church was more secret, and more safe: and nobody worships in it. The wind and the weather are allowed to destroy it; you care so little for it you let it molder; then why howl if a fellow uses it and keeps it warm?”
At this sally there was a broad rustic laugh, which, however, Mr. Raby quelled with one glance of his eye.
“Come, don't be impertinent,” said he to Little.
“Then don't you provoke a fellow,” cried Henry, raising his voice.
Grace clasped her hands in dismay.
Jael Dence said, in her gravest and most mellow voice, “You do forget the good Squire saved your life this very night.”